The Rules We Set Before Diagnosing Our Own Firm

This week we examine our own company in public, using the same five steps we use on everyone else's. These are the rules we wrote down first, so you can hold us to them.

The short version: This week we run our own diagnosis on our own firm and publish the result, good or bad. Before we start, here are six rules we cannot walk back later. Copy them. They work on any company, including yours, and on anyone who offers to fix your business.

Last week we showed a five-step way to find the real problem inside a business. We practiced on an example firm. Then we made a promise: this week, we run the same five steps on ourselves, and we publish what we find, even if the honest answer is "change nothing."

This post is us keeping that promise. Day one is simple: we write the rules before we look.

Why write rules first

Here is the problem with checking your own work. Nobody has to lie. It goes soft on its own. A bad result gets described a little more gently. An option you do not like just never makes the list. A blunt sentence gets rewritten until it stops saying anything.

The fix is not clever. Decide the rules before you see the result, and post them where changing them would show.

The six rules

1. We use the same five steps we would use on any client. No special treatment.
2. The result gets published, whatever it is.
3. Every option we look at is shown with its real cost.
4. "Do nothing" counts as a real answer, and we are saying so now, before we know the result.
5. The whole finding fits on one page.
6. The problem gets named in one plain sentence anyone can repeat.

Why these six? Rule two means we cannot bury a result we do not like. Rule three means we cannot show you only the options that make us look good. Rule four matters most: an assessment that can only ever end with "buy something" is not an assessment. It is a sales pitch. Rules five and six keep the ending small enough to check. One page and one sentence leave nowhere to hide.

Three questions to ask before you pay anyone to fix your business

This works on more than us. Before you pay anyone to find what is wrong in your business, ask three things:

• Have they ever run their own process on themselves, and published what came out?
• Can their process end with "you should not buy anything right now"?
• Does it end in one plain sentence you can act on, or a thick deck you cannot?

Yes to all three means you are probably in careful hands. A wobble on any of them just taught you something for free.

What happens next

The five steps themselves are taught in last week's series, one step a day. This week we only apply them. Tuesday: where work actually gets stuck in a two-person firm, with dates you can check. Wednesday: our problem, named in one sentence, on one page. Thursday: the sentences we wrote and threw away, and why. Friday: the decision, with every option priced, including doing nothing.

One honest note before we start: the work itself is already done. We ran the five steps on our firm in mid-July, while writing this series. Each post this week shows you one piece of what came out, with the dates still attached. We are not narrating it live, and we did not want you to think we were.

One last thing, because these rules are written to be copied. If you ever examine your own company, or let anyone else do it, write your rules before you look. Put them where someone who will see the result can hold you to them. Ours are at the top of this page. Hold us to them starting Tuesday.

Continue the series

This is part 1 of a 5-part series on Diagnosing Our Own Firm. The full arc:

• Monday: The Rules We Set Before Diagnosing Our Own Firm (this post)
• Tuesday: Where Work Stops at a Two-Person Firm
• Wednesday: Our Constraint, in One Plain Sentence (coming Wednesday)
• Thursday: The Sentences We Threw Away (coming Thursday)
• Friday: The Fix We Chose, Priced (coming Friday)

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